What did you do today?

[Ridgerunner]

Dug and compacted an area for a small shed building in August. These buildings are made and delivered by Mennonites in this area.



Note: the date is wrong in the first picture. This camera date was never set for this camera. The second picture from a different camera is correct.

[Ridgerunner]

Formed, mixed, poured, and finished this sidewalk. (I hope the pictures work)








Used this tractor to mix.




I bought a concrete bucket for the skid steer and it comes in handy.




Done. Well, just about lol.

[DennisCA]

I cleaned out the sump on the FP2, been putting it off because it was nasty work.







Corner to the left was difficult to reach






This is what the pump sucks up fluid through. When I got it up it was covered in brown goop but also wrapped with a fine mesh held in place with steel wire. Looked like an addition by some earlier user and not factory.



Inside was a coarser mesh that looked factory installed, I removed it and used the finer mesh to make a new one that fit inside instead.



I'm not quite done with cleaning the sump out yet, once the machine is back together and the pump is running I will fill it with warm water & potassium hydroxide and flush it out to get everything really clean. Maybe I will paint the sump with 2k epoxy primer.

After that... I am not sure, use the machine with coolant or not... I have before used Ballistol and water in a squirt bottle, this worked well and never rusted anything on my lathe. But this summer I bought commercial coolant concentrate and mixed up that in a squirt bottle and it's nasty stuff man. Attacked the zinc coating of some sheet metal coversI had made for the lathe and left a sticky residue and caused rust. I really thought a comercial solution would have been better than my homemade ballistol mixture. I am not at all wanting to use up the keg of concentrate I bought if this is how it behaves. Been thinking if I can sell it.

I've heard some people use neat oil in their coolant systems instead, apparently it lasts decades, just topped up now and then. And never any rust issues. But you don't want to use it with cast iron then, and it smokes and is messier and has no real cooling effect. I do think the few times I would want to use coolant I would want it for the cooling effect too.

I've also considered making my own fog buster instead and move it between the lathe and mill, that would use a lot less coolant and make less of a mess. But it also feels like a waste to have two machines equipped with coolant pumps and not use it...

[Bob Engelhardt]

...
But it also feels like a waste to have two machines equipped with coolant pumps and not use it...

The old "sunk cost" fallacy raises its ugly head again. It's irrelevant that they are already equipped with pumps. The relevant question is: do you want to use the pumps or a mist. If the mist, is it worth the cost? Period.

[Cenedd]

The unthinkable happened today. I reached for the drill chuck key in its place on the mag-bar.......and it was there!!

[The Metal Butcher]

I cleaned out the sump on the FP2, been putting it off because it was nasty work.


I'm not quite done with cleaning the sump out yet, once the machine is back together and the pump is running I will fill it with warm water & potassium hydroxide and flush it out to get everything really clean. Maybe I will paint the sump with 2k epoxy primer.

After that... I am not sure, use the machine with coolant or not... I have before used Ballistol and water in a squirt bottle, this worked well and never rusted anything on my lathe. But this summer I bought commercial coolant concentrate and mixed up that in a squirt bottle and it's nasty stuff man. Attacked the zinc coating of some sheet metal coversI had made for the lathe and left a sticky residue and caused rust. I really thought a comercial solution would have been better than my homemade ballistol mixture. I am not at all wanting to use up the keg of concentrate I bought if this is how it behaves. Been thinking if I can sell it.

I've heard some people use neat oil in their coolant systems instead, apparently it lasts decades, just topped up now and then. And never any rust issues. But you don't want to use it with cast iron then, and it smokes and is messier and has no real cooling effect. I do think the few times I would want to use coolant I would want it for the cooling effect too.

I've also considered making my own fog buster instead and move it between the lathe and mill, that would use a lot less coolant and make less of a mess. But it also feels like a waste to have two machines equipped with coolant pumps and not use it...

And you diluted the concentrate properly? That's interesting as the soluble oil I use attacks rust. Occasionally the power hacksaw I use will get rust between two surfaces if coolant is left to sit, but when exposed to new coolant it eats the rust right off like evaporust.

[DennisCA]

I dilluted it on the generous side to be sure, less water than called for.

[PStechPaul]

I finally started laying blocks for my shed foundation. Initial excavation:

Put down a layer of small rocks and dry tested with blocks. Ropes make it easier to lift in and out:

Poured a layer of concrete mix over the rocks, aligned the blocks, poured more concrete in and around the blocks, and pounded a piece of rerod in the corner:

Had to dig out and wrestle with a big rock in the second row of the foundation:

And... did you know that according to the HSUS calendar, Tuesday was October 39? Trick or treat !

[danlb]

I experienced several key learnings today.

1) The really nice guy at the Ace hardware store did not know how to operate a key machine. Two Cadillac keys (with transponders) failed to work even after he cut them twice. He did not know that some keys need a shim one new and old key to position them correctly in the key duplicator. I stopped him before the keys were ruined. When I measured them at home they were off by more than .020 of an inch. Sigh. I bought a "clamps to the bench" vise at Harbor freight along with a $3 set of needle files. 10 minutes per key and they matched the original and worked fine.

2) If you need a key to fit a desk, screen door or other low security device and it just happens to match a postbox key, good luck getting it duplicated. No one wanted to do it as soon as they noticed the PO on the blank. Finally, I told the guy that I just needed the blank and that I was going to fit it to a screen door. When I accepted one that was too long he decided that it was OK. I'm rusty. It took almost half an hour to impression the key that barely worked, and then another hour to disassemble the lock so that I could figure out which cut I'd gotten too deep.

I actually like the vise. It rotates in several directions and clamps to a handy 2x4.

Dan

[The Metal Butcher]

School work, lit the first fire of the season, and had a nice evening with friends on my Friday.

[AD5MB]

I did a trigger job on my live trap. i arranged it so I can make it not trigger, to build critter confidence, or go off with a tiny bit of weight, because the skunk who dug himself a path to my living room is a lightweight

going to town now to look for an electric fence charger at a pawnshop price to juice up the sheet metal he walks across to get to his access hole

setting up a camera to spot the hole, because it isn't obvious

going to send this thing to "live on a farm", and I live on a farm now.

[mattthemuppet]

replaced the ceiling fan/ light in my youngest's bedroom after she blew the last one by letting a helium balloon get caught up in it. Blew the capacitor AND snapped 2 of the 3 mains wires going into the fan. No helium balloons allowed in bedrooms anymore.. Replacement was a curb find from the recent bulk trash pickup - the previous owner even put the LED light bulbs and screws in a little baggie to go with it, which was very thoughtful.

Also made a cozy for my bike battery as my battery cooling mod has proved a bit too effective the last few mornings at 33F. Capacity has dropped off alot from what it should be, so I insulated it with some yoga matting. Made a bit of a difference, though that was probably balanced out by the extra effort I was putting into things to warm ME up

[Cenedd]

Attended a birthday party where at least one of the participants was lucky to be alive. Turns out the shortly before I got there they were trying to set up a barrel of beer on a CO2 propelled pump and the thread on the regulator was smaller than the thread on the cylinder....so they tried wrapping it in lots of PTFE tape! At an assumed 2-300 bar, you can imagine how long that held! I had been wondering why there were what looked like bits of ticker tape distributed round the area. The odd sort of thin spiral of metal too - sort of the shape the peak of a thread might be if violently sheared come to think of it. Well at least it was CO2 and nothing combustible!

[Bob Engelhardt]

... At an assumed 2-300 bar, ...

Still crazy stupid, but "only" 60 bar.

[Cenedd]

Still crazy stupid, but "only" 60 bar.

I stand corrected. My only experience is with dive cylinders. I know enough to know that a mismatched thread is a sign to stop though!